A Wise Choice
by satsumio
Summary: Rey wakes from a dream. Or perhaps it was a vision, of what might have been...?


Rey woke with a start. Gasping for air, she sat up and first pressed a hand to her racing heart before touching it to her face as the lingering traces of sleep slipped away. She stared blindly out into the red tinged darkness and tried desperately to make sense of the horrors she'd just witnessed.

"Rey?" A mumbled query was met by her silence. It continued more urgently, "Rey, what's wrong?"

"I...don't know," she shook her head slowly, still staring blankly at the wide window that held the darkness of space peppered by tiny glittering points of light.

"I don't know," she repeated hoarsely before continuing. "A dream? A vision? It was...horrible."

A long arm snaked out of the darkness and slipped around her waist to draw her close against a broad chest. Rey closed her eyes and tucked her head up under her partner's chin, relishing the bond they shared, both physically and through the Force.

"Tell me," he said in a voice that was impossibly soft and gruff at the same time.

"It was…" Rey hesitated as she gathered her thoughts and then pressed on. "I think it was a possible...past? It was all in the past. But it was us, through all our trials."

"A possible past? What was different?" He asked with a hint of worry coloring his curiosity.

"We were enemies," she whispered, her eyes widening in silent fear as the memories of the dream flooded back.

"Enemies? Us? How?" He asked incredulously, tightening his arm possessively around her waist and adding his other arm for good measure.

"I think it started after you killed Snoke," she continued, her brow furrowing as she dug through the layers of the vision. "When you offered your hand. I didn't take it. I didn't take your hand, and we fought. The Skywalker lightsaber shattered, and I ran away. You went mad, chased after me and nearly destroyed what was left of the Resistance. We didn't go down together to talk to Leia...you just tried to obliterate it all."

Kylo, her partner and beloved, blew out a slow breath before answering. "Yeah, that sounds like something I would have done."

"Luke used the force to distract you and gave me time to evacuate the last of the resistance. He died," she continued.

"That must have made the fight against Palpatine a lot harder," Kylo said with a frown in his voice.

Rey shuttered and nodded, the ending of the dream too horrible to say out loud.

"We fought and fought, always at a stalemate. You wanted me dead or to join you, I wanted the Resistance to survive and to bring you back to the light. I hid and trained with your mother. It's all so confusing."

"Easy picking for Palpatine, sounds like," he growled darkly.

"Yes...ugh, it was so horrible. I don't want to think about it anymore," Rey shook her head sharply against his shoulder.

"The Force can show us many things. Possible futures. Possible pasts. What matters is that you did take my hand, we were united against Palpatine, and Luke finally did something useful by dying to protect us."

"You are never going to forgive him, are you?" Rey said, rolling her eyes.

"Wasn't planning on it," Kylo replied with a shrug. Whatever else he might have said was interrupted by a groggy voice.

"Mommy? Daddy? I had a bad dream," a tiny figure appeared in the doorway that led to a nursery off their bed chamber.

"Hmm, so did Mommy," Kylo said warmly as he released Rey to stand up. Rey watched his towering figure glide through the near darkness and then crouch down to pick up their son.

"I didn't like it. You went away," the tiny child mumbled, rubbing his eye with one hand and clutching his stuffed wookie with the other.

"I went away? That sounds like a bad dream," Kylo said before shooting a concerned look over their son's coal black head at Rey. Feeling ill, all she could do was nod mutely and hold her arms out to accept their precious burden.

"I'm never going to leave you," Kylo continued, drawing his fingers through the fringe of hair over the boy's eyes. "Not ever. And I'll never send you away."

"And neither will I," Rey added fiercely. "We're a family, and we stay together. No matter what."

The boy nodded his head against Rey's chest and stared up at his father with disturbing intensity, as though cementing him into his mind.

Kylo met that solemn gaze steadily before nodding. He stood up and disappeared into the nursery with a few quick strides.

"I love you, my sweet son. I'll never let you go," Rey whispered, closing her eyes. It did nothing to block out the horrors of her nightmare vision, but it did let her focus on the moment. The smell of her beautiful son's mussed hair, the feel of each breath he took against her heart, the feel of his tiny body wrapped in his favorite footed pajamas. She held onto those feelings, recognizing and accepting the primal maternal rage that rose up at the slightest threat her mind perceived. It would give her strength should she need to protect her family, but she did not let it dominate her. Such anger would poison her mind as readily as any other dark emotions.

"Such visions can be warnings, or sometimes they can just be validation that we've made a right or wrong choice," Kylo said quietly as he returned to the room. He carried a dark bundle in his arms. The silken material of the blanket glimmered eerily in the dim red lights that edging the floor.

The Supreme Leader of the First Order sat down slowly and carefully before tilting the blanket wrapped bundle toward their son. Outside of their rooms, Kylo was a dark and stern leader. He demanded much of their forces, but with Rey's help, he also brought temperance to what was the progeny of the old Empire. In the secure privacy of their home, Kylo was able to be himself. A beautiful melding of Ben Solo's compassion and curiosity with Kylo Ren's fortitude and determination. Though he'd dropped the Ren after he destroyed the Knights of Ren when they sided with the Emperor, he was still Kylo. The name was his choice, and carried no dark burdens in his mind.

"She's so wrinkly," the little boy said, wrinkling his own nose.

"So were you when you were born," Rey laughed softly and kissed the top of his head before stretching out a hand to lightly brush the feathered down of black hair gracing her daughter's head.

"Yeah, when you were born, I thought your mother spent too much time with a Gamoran," Kylo teased, flashing a lopsided grin up at Rey.

She snorted and rolled her eyes, but on the inside she felt a flood of deep love for her dyad soul mate. There was a time when they were adversaries, but that hadn't lasted long once they began to understand their incredible bond. Now they teased and loved each other with equal abandon.

"What's a gamron?" Their son asked curiously.

"A big ugly beast, not unlike your father when he's at work," Rey said with an impish smile.

Further conversation was interrupted when the sleeping newborn cradled in Kylo's arms screwed her face up into an aggrieved scowl and let out an indignant wail.

"Well, it looks like someone is hungry. Why don't we let mommy deal with that while we go find a yummy snack for her, too?" Kylo asked their son as he and Rey expertly swapped the children.

"Cookies?" The boy gasped excitedly, his dream and troubles long forgotten.

"Sure. All the cookies you could want," his father chortled.

"Two. You can have two cookies," Rey cut in sternly.

"Mommy calls me a tyrant of the galaxy, but she won't even let us have cookies," Kylo lamented as they stepped out of the bedroom. Rey stuck out her tongue at him, and his parting grin hung in her mind as she shifted and peered down at their daughter.

"I don't know what it was, or why I saw it, but I will _never_ give you up. I will stand back to back with Kylo to protect you until the last stars burn out," she whispered to the tiny infant. Her daughter blinked and lifted her eyes to peer up at Rey with the same intensity her son did.

Rey continued with a soft smile, "You don't need to worry about that right now. Just know we'll keep you safe."


End file.
